[rickcarlino]

Do a real project with goals and expectations. Learn exactly what you need to get the task done. Do not buy a ROS book. Do not spend huge amounts of time exploring the ecosystem. Just focus on making it “do the thing”. The experience will come when the goals are met. Source: I built the entire initial software stack for the FarmBot project (minus the gcode handling firmware, thanks Tim) and had zero hardware experience when I started. I can compile embedded Linux kernels from scratch and whatnot now.

[jamestimmins]

Haven’t done robotics, but this approach is also much more feasible now with AI, which I appreciate.

[drtgh]

That is not a good idea. To deal with LLMs one need to have knowledge about the topic of the query, case contrary one will not be able to detect the errors of their output-prompts. The test is easy, if after one or three queries one do not detect the errors, one is done, the person is reading the output-prompts in passive mode.

The self-learn path require also to cultivate a intuition that comes from searching and reading technical doc that a LLM will not give you, among other things.

Anyway, I observe how the warning of the other user about this got downvoted and critiqued. I expect the same, and leave this thread with peace of mind subscribing to such warning, as a message to the OP.

[relaxing]

OP wants to brush up on their skills, not have AI do it for them.

[serf]

>OP wants to brush up on their skills, not have AI do it for them.

the two things aren't mutually exclusive.

if an AI tells you "solder A to B" you're going to learn some technique whether you want to or not. Extrapolated entirely into a robotics project.. there's a lot to gain just through sheer osmosis of instruction.

[8note]

the barrier to entry for a lot of playing around is getting a working scaffold to be able to run all your testing from

id expect it could pick you out a breadboard, a micro, some actuators and sensors, along with get a code deploy and run harness going for you, so you can focus on doing the robotics, rather than anything else.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Some people learn by doing, or learn by example, and the faster they can get into doing an example, the faster they will learn.

I am one of those people, and I can't count how many textbooks I own, of which I've read the first few chapters, and lost interest because I wasn't doing anything, only reading.

When I can instead start doing something, as GP emphasized, I can learn the applicable concepts as they're applied, which works well for me. AI helps me do that, because it is like a textbook that follows along with me, rather than asking me to follow it. Also I ask a lot of questions.

[globalnode]

Thats where appreticeships come in handy, you can watch and learn by example.

[ImPostingOnHN]

Very true, and doing it this way lets me learn at midnight for no extra cost while I go from zero to one and keep my day job that lets me pursue such passions.

They're very varied, so not a clear path to a job there, and I'm not sure I would want to make a job out of all of them.

[bitwize]

I don't think using ChatGPT as a wikihow is going to blunt their skills. As long as what the LLM says is actually correct.